


Memories

by ChibisUnleashed



Series: Powerswap AU [3]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Can't resist that crack, Fluff, Hope Week 2020, I'm still laughing about Pitch Plaque, Jackman Snoozie, M/M, Pitch Plaque, Powerswap AU, Probably Crack, definitely fluff, rotgHopeWeek, will never not be funny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23779303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibisUnleashed/pseuds/ChibisUnleashed
Summary: Jack, the Sandman, would like to spend a little more time with Pitch, the tooth fairy. Except he won't leave his palace.That counts as an invitation then, right?
Relationships: Jack Frost/Pitch Black
Series: Powerswap AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705012
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the Hope Week hosts for doing this!!!

“Remember, Ladies, move swiftly, move silently, and we’ll all have a good night!”

Jack lazily rolled his neck around, rolled his shoulders, then laid down on his cloud to watch Pitch work. 

“Summer first! Shorter night, harder fight! We’ve got this!”

“You mean  _ they’ve  _ got this,” Jack teased. Pitch Plaque was vivacity in motion, swirling through the air in a rush of metallic colors and dark feathers. It made Jack tired just to watch—lucky he was on a cloud—but in a lovely way, like listening to a waterfall or gentle rain. Jack could watch Pitch move forever.

“Snoozie, I don’t need your input.” The long, thin feathers on Pitch’s crown swished and suddenly the man was right in front of him. Jack smiled. “I know you have your own neverending job to do, you’re certainly tired enough every time I see you, so what are you doing here?”

“Can’t I just drop by for a visit?”

Pitch turned away to examine the teeth one of his fairies brought up to him. Jack had not been expecting the massive plumage of his tail feathers to smack him in the face, but honestly, Jack found he didn’t mind. Pitch replied without even turning back. 

“You could, but you never do. So what do you want?”

Would it be too honest to ask to be smacked in the face with feathers again? 

“Thought I’d try things your way, for once.”

Pitch turned just enough to look sideways at Jack, and his profile was  _ marvelous.  _ “My way?”

“Hang out at headquarters. Let my minions do the rest.”

Pitch scoffed and flew away from Jack to give his fairies the guidance they were missing while he was distracted with Jack. That was fine. Jack slid a little lower in his cloud to admire Pitch’s thin, spindly legs suspended gracefully in the air.

“You don’t have minions.”

Jack snapped out of his doze to find Pitch was watching him… watch him. Oops. Jack’s smile widened guiltlessly. “I have sand. Same thing.”

“It’s not the same at all, and I am offended on behalf of my ladies.” Pitch’s nose was in the air, and so were all the little noses of his ladies. It was beautiful, really. 

“You’re right,” he amended, “it’s not the same. Still, if I can’t convince you to leave the nest, I can always join you in it, right?”

Pitch fluttered a handful of fingers at him and dove down to the wall of memories he’d been working on filling, tonight. “You’re distracting me, Jackman, and I have a job to do.”

Jack pulled himself up higher and shrugged. “I could keep them asleep a little while longer for you?” he offered, spilling over the edge of his cloud to rest his chin on his arms.

“And maybe make them miss school?” Funny, Pitch didn’t sound as scandalized as his words implied, “That’s abhorrent. The aim is to remind them of  _ good  _ memories, Jackman, not make more bad ones.” 

One of Pitch’s ladies had come up to hover beside Jack, and he offered her the end of his crook to rest on. She looked like she could use some sheep to count. 

“They could play hookie,” he grinned. “Those can be great memories.”

“ _ All  _ of the children? In  _ all  _ of one timezone?” 

Jack laughed. “Dream big, I always say.”

“That’s a little too big, even for you,” Pitch sighed. He floated back up to Jack’s cloud and favored him with a tiny smile. “You  _ are  _ welcome here, but maybe pick a less populated timezone to show up during?”

Jack nodded his understanding. “It’s a date.”

Pitch slid backwards in the air. “Is it?”

That was a perfect cue to leave. Jack waved lazily as his cloud floated away. “See you later, Pitch!”

“Much later!” Well, he recovered quickly. “Think South Pacific!” 

Yanno, for a man who wasn’t expecting a date, he sure had it all figured out. 

Jack liked that.


	2. Dreams

Jackman wasn’t quite sure what he was watching. 

It looked a bit like ballet, with Pitch balanced high on his thin legs and dainty toes. You could imagine that his feathers were a little like a tutu right now, except Jack was distracted with wondering just how his feathers were even  _ doing  _ that. 

It had all started with getting Pitch to, finally, join him out in the field. Jack won him over with the argument that if Pitch were  _ there,  _ his fairies wouldn’t have to fly as far to report, and that was more efficient, wasn’t it? 

All that work was so worth it. Pitch had a grand time personally directing the fairies from child to child and even picking up a few teeth, himself. He might just convince the tooth fairy to do it this way every night, and wouldn’t that be amazing?

“You don’t need to watch them  _ that  _ closely,” Jack had said. Pitch had been darting to and fro above the city like that would somehow make the ladies turn over pillows faster. “They do this every night, you know.”

Lying back on his glowing cloud of sand, Jack plucked dreams like strings right out of the air. Pitch told him once that he made it look effortless, and Jack supposed that was because he refused to put more effort in than he needed to. Dreams were not supposed to be planned out or fully formed. They were charming in their incompleteness, and if Jack stressed out about making them  _ better  _ or  _ just right,  _ all he would be doing was infecting the dreams with his own anxiety and worry. 

Let the children have their own worries. They didn’t need any of Jack’s. 

“I know exactly how much work they do every night,  _ Snoozie,”  _ Pitch hissed in offense. He bit at his own fingertips and Jack quickly stopped weaving dreams for a second, just in case. “I can’t help it, though,” Pitch continued, “I like to micromanage.”

“We can tell,” Jack said with a laugh. A trio of Pitch’s ladies landed in a neat row on Jack’s arm and nodded their agreement. They seemed so  _ earnest  _ about it that Jack couldn’t tell if they were in on the joke or serious. There was a fine art to keeping Pitch unwound and his army of fairies were very good at it.

“What?” Pitch demanded, spinning in the air to look Jack over. He hid nothing from that critical gaze. “You want me to be more like you?”

Jack shook his head. “I wouldn’t want you to change for the world. I’d just like to get to see you more, that’s all.”

Feathers Jack hadn’t realized were so ruffled began to deflate until Pitch hung in the air like a stunned duck that didn’t know what to do with itself. 

Jack laughed and the spell broke. Pitch turned right around and sent his fairies after dozens of more teeth. Crazy how he seemed so busy visiting every child who lost a tooth that day when Jack had to visit every child, period, and did it lying back in a soft bed of dreams.

When darkness fell over the ocean, they retreated to Jack’s island. They could reach all the children they needed to there, and grab a quick moment of rest. At least, that’s what Jack thought they were going to do.

Then Pitch had started to dance. 

Jack was bemused, but he wasn’t going to question a damn thing. Well, perhaps one thing. One little thing.

“What are you doing, Pitch?”

“Dancing, of course,” he answered. Pitch was leaning so far over on his toothpick legs that Jack wasn’t sure how he was still standing at all. “Do you like it?”

There was very little Pitch could do that Jack would not enjoy watching. As confused as he was, that was still true. “Well, yeah.” And if Pitch had randomly decided to start dancing in his own palace, Jack probably would have just accepted it as what Pitch likes to do on his days off (not that he ever took any of those.) Jack’s island, however, was possibly the worst dance floor out of all of their homes and was built for napping, which he would have been less surprised to see Pitch do. 

So… “I just,  _ why?” _

Instead of answering, Pitch paused in his dance to lift one of his wings in a slow wave-like motion. His head was held high, but his eyes were on Jack, like he was trying to show off, or something. “Are you impressed?”

Wait.

Jack had not felt more awake in  _ years.  _ “Are you… displaying yourself… for me?”

Pitch’s wing halted and he stood so still that Jack was impressed by  _ that.  _

“Are we not courting?” Pitch  _ sounded  _ confused, but he still looked so confident and steady that Jack almost thought he dreamt it. “I thought you wanted…”

“Oh my stars, yes!” Jack rolled out of his sand and sat up  _ properly  _ for this. He even pushed the hood of his sheep kigu off his head so that Pitch would know just how serious and attentive he was. “Please, continue.” Not that he had any idea what he was in for. 

Pitch hesitated for a moment, eyeing Jack up and down, obviously weighing the pros and cons and how much he could trust him. Pitch must have decided Jack was just as enthusiastic as he meant to appear because his entire field of vision was suddenly engulfed in dark feathers and metallic sheen.

The sheer volume and speed knocked Jack right back off his ass. He landed in the sand with his feet in the air and a laugh caught in his throat. Shocked would be an understatement. 

Slower than they appeared, Pitch folded his feathers away. “You aren’t supposed to  _ laugh,”  _ he accused. 

“I’m sorry,” Jack begged. “I wasn’t ready.”

Pitch scoffed. “You  _ looked  _ ready.”

Jack righted his posture and shook the sand out of his hair. What a trip. “Not for  _ that,”  _ he said, gesturing at Pitch, “I didn’t know your feathers could even  _ do  _ that.”

Pitch waved dismissively with his nose in the air. He looked like he was above everything, but Jack could read between the lines. He was hurt. “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.”

“That’s true,” Jack admitted, hoping to soothe Pitch’s ego. He’d really like it if Pitch would start dancing again. “But I want to know. Show me again?”

Pitch stared him down warily. “You won’t laugh?”

Jack smiled at him through a put-upon sigh. “I laugh at everything, Pitch,” he said, “It just means I’m happy.”

He must have recognized the truth in that, because after a tense second or two, Pitch’s feathers started to rise again. Jack could appreciate the oddity this time, the way Pitch’s muscles had to move to make this happen. It really  _ was  _ impressive. Absolutely unique. Stunningly beautiful. 

Once the display was set and Pitch was hidden again amongst all his bountiful plumage, he chanced, “How do I look?”

It was breath-takingly charming. Jack grinned.

“Like a dream.”


End file.
